Assuming that the world needs more soaring, sing-along melodies that align themselves into anthems for a subset of music fans — let’s say, for sake of argument, the same subset that welcomed Kings Of Leon’s Only By the Night — the arrival of Cold War Kids’ Mine Is Yours earlier this year should be something welcome when you, say, breeze by it and see it on sale in the Target music racks.
But if you consider yourself indie — and not just a fan of the wide spectrum of music that gets lumped in the difficult-to-pin-down indie category — Mine Is Yours is more than just a collection of new songs pointing in a more pop-oriented, straightforward direction than on previous albums. It’s, even though it doesn’t mean to be, something personal.
If you’re a fan of Cold War Kids based on the band’s pre-Mine Is Yours work, it’s likely for qualities that resonate more with college radio than hit radio. Their lyrics often veer into short story territory, detailing characters and their lurches through life, with Nathan Willett’s wailing, distinctive voice making lines like “I give a check to tax-deductible charity organizations” positively
